Into the Last Sawdust Night ... With a Fanfare or a USDA Escort?

(correction, 4/19: I erroneously reported animal problems with Circus Vargas; The show is Circus Vazquez)

Update 4/21: Read Ben Trumble's comment at the end of this post, stressing that local Los Angeles County officials, not the USDA, banned the animals.

“Not with a bang, but a whimper,” this is how the world ends, wrote poet T.S. Elliot. And the circus? With a Merle Evans Crescendo? --- or the last episode of the last reality show making fools of actors pretending to be ring stars?

Some say it will vanish like vaudeville. Others, like barely 20-something Logan Jacot, say not at all. Read on: “I have great respect for the circus industry,” writes he on his new blog, Sawdust Nights. “They have conquered all odds and somehow the circus is still alive and well in the twenty first century though it was pronounced dead over fifty years ago.” Sawdust Nights. Love those two words rhapsodically linked, Logan ...

So let us of the aging class take hope and raise our Dragonwell tea — or, well, whatever it is you raise — to a thousand more sawdust nights. Link in a blink to Logan’s log — you’ll find it right here to your right. It merits serious attention.

Logan tells us he is now training a complete rabbit act! He speaks promisingly for the younger generation, defending big tops against their PETA-centric foes. This smart kid smartly advocates more websites and blogs pushing to get out the circus side of the story: “We need to really start focusing our efforts to stop the propaganda and lies about the circus industry and I really believe everybody that supports the circus needs to start focusing more on the internet.” Amen and a crashing fanfare to that, Logan!

Specifics? Urges, he, “Upload more pro animals videos to YouTube and other video hosting sites.” Okay, you’ve got your marching orders, people. Know what? It’s about time I see how and if I can load videos onto this here midway....

And how our battered big tops need more vocal and visual on-line defense. Simply awful is the news out of L.A. (by way of media watchdog Don Covington) about the eviction from Circus Vazquez of five tigers who nearly decapitated, earlier this spring, a female tiger when all shared the same cage overnight. Tiger died. And that’s not all: Banned, too, are three Vazquez elephants from Panorama City, whose keeper, Will Davenport, was cited for “having recently violated federal animal welfare laws,” according the L.A. Daily News. I don’t know how much in violation of the rules Vazquez actually was (the show did not return phone calls for comment from ABC news), but it doesn’t look good. And for it to happen in a town where three is a news camera on nearly every corner. My heart grieves for all circus owners who do everything they can to right the wrongs of the past and present animals under ideal conditions.

Not with a bang but a USDA eviction. Let’s go somewhere else, okay? Here’s chirpy Marilyn Hardy, fondly recalling the high she got back at Madison Square Garden in 1957 when ringmaster Harold Ronk sang “Open the window wide and let the sun in!” In her own words: "High hat and arms raising a cape like great black wings, he captivated my young spirit with the dynamic energy of that song." The tune was composed by John Ringling North projecting a new day sans big top. Ms. Hardy is doing a film about songs of the sun, and she wants to include North's contribution. I hated to tell her it wasn't a favorite of mine. And it struck me a few days ago, so much of the North music that I loved from the under canvas years was played by Merle Evans. All of the songs for the indoor years were conducted by the very different Izzy Cervone. Could that be why? I know, Cervone has his fans who make solid arguments in his favor. But, somehow either he or North failed in the asphalt mode.

Not with a bang but a reality show blowout? Noting the premature demise of ABC's Circus of the Stars, Don Covington asks me, “David, your new career may be in jeopardy? Do you think NBC will follow suit?" Not quite yet, Don. Ashton Ramsey just called. So my tenuous hold on tanbark celebrity is still tenuously holding. Maybe not with a bang, but half a whimper from a full wimp.

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The Circus Vazquez Matter --- Another View from L.A.

Note: I am reprinting in its entirety the following comment from Alex Smith, which appeared on Topix, to give another view of the situation and how it may have developed. Text highlighting is my own.

"This is sensationalizes nonsense. CIRCUS VAZQUEZ was already in LA playing Huntington Park for 3 weeks. All permits and inspections by LA City, Fish and Game, and USDA were cleared DAILY. It wasn't until the animal rights PETA people showed up in Panorama City to protest that this occurred.

They inspected the elephants and equipment head to toe and even followed the trainer and the elephants during the show with a camera to make sure there was no abuse and THERE WAS NONE.

A rule enacted only 6 weeks ago that claims any trainer with a negative cite from USDA (the agency responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act) in the last 5 years can't perform in the city limits. The violation this trainer made was several years ago and had to do with fence size in the enclosure. It was not abuse! That's like giving a you a moving violation on your driving record for a parking ticket.

CIRCUS VAZQUEZ has been in LA for 3 weeks and inspected every day and passed. There is no proof of abuse and the trainers were very diplomatic in agreeing with the LA City permits a process which began over 8 weeks ago.

This is an example of PETA and other groups influencing the right people. This circus is an excellent show and a favorite for local audiences who were disappointed that there would be no elephants.

You people that think this is such a great decision might ask ED BOKS why it took him three weeks to get the elephants out of the city? My hypothesis is that there was no abuse and PETA influenced him. The same PETA that's on the FBI terrorist list."

To read all 21 comments posted, go to:

http://www.topix.com/forum/science/agriculture/T91G55GNLP2VDHDLV

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NBC to Me: Do You Want to Judge “Celebrity Circus?”

Monte Carlo is one thing. A bunch of Hollywood actors trying to look like circus artists, quite another. (BTW: whatever became of David Nelson on the flying trapeze?)

Still, ego is ego, and so when somebody calls me (as they do every two or three years), my own inflated sense of superiority goes for a wild ride. Usually, to nowhere.

This time, it was an e-mail from one Ashton Ramsey, his name right above “NBC’s Celebrity Circus.” He wanted to talk to me “about maybe being a judge” (Yes, I know, that headline above that got you in here was a shameless tease.). I called back.

“So, you’re the only real circus critic there is,” he began. Immediately impressed, and hardly feeling vain, I told him, yes you are correct. After all, who else is there out there? White Tops? One of the blogs that selectively picks on Ringless Bros?

Ashton had been background checking me, digging around in this here blog, and he seemed somewhat intrigued to have discovered my murky existence. We talked about that critic thing for a while. “Yeah, I’m your Simon Cowell of the big top.” I told him I’ve been mouthing off since I was 14-years old, when I was first published.

We talked about who the other judges might be. He ran some names past me. One is a retired and much loved aerialist. Another is a well paid star with a very large U.S. show, whose work I recently reviewed not exactly falling for all the show-generated hype. (I’m purposely not mentioning names because, believe it or not, I still have a shred of ethics and I don’t wish to derail the prospects for any potential non-circus critic judge.)

But as for me, the next thing they needed — and fast — was a mock “interview.” Said Ashton, they would call me up in the next few days and while I answered the questions, I would record it and then send the recording to them to review.

There was a problem. I don’t own a video recorder.

“You must know somebody who has one,” said Ashton, expecting me to administer a screen test to myself!

So much for that thing about my being the only true living circus critic. In the eyes of Hollywood (aka: Ramsey Casting), I guess I’m ranked somewhere between Pretentious Novelty from the lost big top to Game Show Contestant .

“And be sure it’s a DV, not a DVD”

Oh, I see.

Every three or four years, something like this. PBS has called a couple of times — independent film maker wanting me as talking head for some project on spec. Please send resume. Resume sent. No further word.

I was about to be mock interviewed on camera for The Learning Channel — until I learned that Feld Entertainment was partly funding a circus documentary that would be sold on its midways. No thanks, Jose, said I to Jose. I don’t flack for veiled Feld promos. See why I’m still the only circus critic around?

Back to NBC. To the savvy Ashton, whom I enjoyed talking to, I e-mailed my ambivalence. Such as not feeling to good about sitting next to a performer whose work I have refused to acclaim as do some of the fans. Such as wondering if Celebrity Circus might be scripted — as I’ve heard some so called reality shows are. I offered to do an audition interview up here if they could send somebody. (That’s what TLC would have done)

In hasty reply, the last I heard from Mr. Ramsey — “ Yeah, let’s just work on the camera and not get ahead of yourself. No, we are not going to script you. No, xxxx [star] isn’t signed on. And yes this show would help you sell a lot of copies of your books! So baby steps.”

So goo goo and da da. I have yet to see or hear of a camera at my door. Know what I think? When an Ashton calls, most people chase the chance to get their mugs on a TV show.

I started out many years ago with a big ego. Believe it or not, over time, it’s gotten a lot smaller. If Ashton calls you, remember, baby steps first....and have your iPod film crew standing by.

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A Fairgrounds of Memories ...

Beyond the creamy bark of Eucalyptus under a cool April sun, I glance down upon a grassy open field where once upon a spring I helped set up the Clyde Beatty Circus. Upon it now are a trio of tots chasing after a ball while a father figure looks on. I like this setting most of all when I have it all to myself, for then my boyhood memories are pure, unmolested by the passage of time...

I am sitting with laptop at a picnic table where people never come except for when the Sonoma County Fair is here in late July. In my boyhood, the field at my feet was an open lot across the street, later annexed to the fair. Up here once stood an old shed filled with abandoned metal strips that I collected for model building.

Once upon another day when Carson & Barnes played the same space, late friend Hugo Marquardt and I hit the fairgrounds mutually intent on crashing a circus. Hugo made laughing reference to an old CFA slogan that went “We pay as we go.” Said Hugo, his hands mimicking applause, “We clap as we go!” And he laughed. Sure enough, we did what young boys once did ...

The fairgrounds is so much better when the fair is not here. Before an ugly elevated freeway appeared at the front side, there was a median of dirt and weeds, and on it one July evening stood a carnival wagon of quaint intrigue. What was it for, I wondered? It had just been tractored out from the railroad crossing at Sebastopol Avenue where Foley & Burke were running wagons across flats, down the runs and onto the streets. That wagon, waiting to be spotted, would the next morning be unfolded out and up into the Thimble Theatre Fun House — I fell in love with its spooky walkthrough upstairs, its grinding old shuffle boards below. Now sadly it rests in semi-neglect under a back shed at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo.

So many summers ago, when the first two races were the trotters all harnessed up, my favorite dirt derby, so much more dramatic at the start as sulky drivers whipped and gripped and sped into positions behind the extended bars off an accelerating white Cadillac, which whizzed suddenly away ... “And they’re off!”

And big burly lovable John Strong entertained as a free attraction in his little tent, managing to make a shoestring show seem like the most important event of the day ... "Hi, ya folks! Gosh, look who I see out there in my audience! David, stand up!"

In outline, the fairgrounds has changed little over the years. A pair of old hog barns recharge my memories with unmistakable smells, with thick splintery boards bearing white chalky paint and rusty hinges. Strange how the slightest whiff can revive a vivid feeling you can never put into words. Inside the Grace Pavilion, where gadget vendors still hawk in late July, the circus many years ago stole my heart away when Polack Bros. came to town. Francis Brunn and La Norma and the great Wallendas were there. The Shriners were there in their tall red hats, free passes in hand, looking for kids like me to make happy. Through a door suddenly opened to me, a world of spangled wonder and magic came alive...

Trot, please, trot your horse...

Across the way now in the Lyttle Cow Palace, an Arabian Horse meet is on, and they are as lost in time as I feel. And up beyond the cow barns, there is the old farm machinery building, called that initially until it soon became the flower show building. During the winters when I lived only a few blocks away on Brown Street, I loved bicycling out, hoping the doors to the building would be open, which they never were, and peeking through the cracks to study the colors and shapes of Foley & Burk wagons, all tucked away in off-season hibernation. The one I most wanted to see was the Thimble Theatre, my pet.

The grassy field is now vacant ..

Walk around the track at the normal trot...

Once upon a boyhood, I’d gaze out upon the race track surrounded with Monterrey Cypress in the still of a muted blue January day and try imaging what Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey would look like were it to pitch its beautiful blue big top right out there in the middle. What a spectacle!

We will take a lunch break at the end of this class...

So many quiet memories on a perfect day at the fairgrounds. If only I had the place completely to myself ... If only time could be turned ...

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Sunday Morning, Looking Back: Do Circuses Face Another 1938?

This first appeared on April 12, 2008


Seventy years after arguably the worst season in American circus history, today’s smaller shows are already foundering, and it’s only April. Cry, clown, cry?

Seventy years later, at least two U.S. circuses that I know of (Cole and Vargas) do not offer the public program magazines or handbills. At least two (Cole and Kelly-Miller) have web sites that feature act photos from previous editions with no reference to current offerings. Virtually all U.S. tenters are ominously short handed, desperately awaiting temporary Mexican workers held back because of the Visa issue. All face the ugly realities of skyrocketing gas prices. What else? Despite a recessionary economy dumping more Americans into unemployment lines, our circuses can’t seem to find U.S. citizens to move their tents. Why?

By the brutal end of ‘38, eight shows were out of business. Only two of those eight returned the next year. To bring the point home, here are eight of the shows now on the road:

Ringling-Barnum
Big Apple
UniverSoul
Kelly-Miller
Carson & Barnes
Circus Vargas
Walker Bros.
Culpepper

Okay, take your pick. Remove six of those eight from the list, and you have 1938 all over again. Of course, this is not going to happen — not yet. The tenting world today is a far different animal, drastically reduced in size and equipment from what it offered a public addicted to three rings during the 1930s. Only Ringling still tours by rail.

But there are two major issues that do not bode well for 2008: bank-draining visits to the gas pump and a dearth of worker bees to pitch the tents.

What can the owners do to stave off the unthinkable? The one day standers can reduce their gas bills by playing fewer towns for longer stays. This favors those shows (like Cole and Vargas) with such a policy already in place, and it minimizes stress on overworked personnel — performers expected to help lug props and poles and ring curbs into place. In order to sustain a multiple day run, however, a show needs a certain showmanship that will generate word of mouth. I still believe that discount ducats for the moppets can only get you so far.

The one day pattern of survival rides on the free kid’s ticket angle — give two shows (marginal contents) in a city and get out fast. Which is not to say that some of the one-day tricks are guilty of inferior offerings. My guess does explain to me why Circus Chimera failed; the Judkins bare bones approach sans animals might have worked in a one day format. I rarely saw the Chimera canvas even half full. But then again, neither was the Vargas tent even half full when I took in a show last summer.

On the other hand, the smaller shows have an advantagee as the economy tanks: Highly affordable ticket prices and a public ready, I suspect, to gratefully embrace adequate entertainment for their children. I printed out a C&B ticket and discovered a smart (new?) approach I have never encountered before: Any person can enter with the coupon for free as long as he or she is accompanied by a paying patron. How flexible. I could take an adult friend.

Now let’s cut to the ugly chase and discuss wages. Up until 1933, circuses could pay whatever they could get away with paying. Some of them put up a good cookhouse, and the workingman had a place to sleep. When federal minimum wage laws were enacted in 1933, setting the scale at 25 cents an hour, combined with the rise of labor unions those laws complicated the picture. The U.S. Supreme Court repealed the act in 1935 as unconstitutional, but it was reenacted in October, 1938 —25 cents per hour, slated to rise to 30 cents the following year and remain that way for six years. The Ringling show in 1939 signed a pact with the AFA stipulating a $45monthly minimum for its working men. By my calculator, that allows for 45 hours of labor per week at the 25 cent minimum. Likely the men turned in more time. But given free food and shelter, perhaps the show ethically met its agreement. Now to the murky present tense, clouded by all the unspoken compromises that are made when Mexicans cross the border to supply the willing hands, often at the expense of subverting the so-called "free marketplace" of U.S. capitalism by driving down actual wages.

The missing element here is what circuses today actually pay a person to drive a truck or swing a hammer and lay out canvas. I’m told that the visa program mandates legal wages; what those wages are I would like to know — and maybe somebody will volunteer the answer. But the greater problem I fear is that, no matter the official answer, circus owners survive as do expedient farmers, relying on cheap labor that might be cheaper than legal. The realities change, and the shrewdest showman will find ways to adapt.

In 1956, John Ringling North, mired in a crippling labor strike after years of disputes with the unions, came to his senses about the impracticability of a huge traveling three ring circus. And he opted to go indoors. Other shows over the years have chosen to scale down in size and retain those romantic tents. Well, now they are all quite small. What next?

Whatever is next, I suggest less hula hoops and protracted pony ride intermissions; more dazzling artistry.


4.12.08

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Big Tops in Bits & Pieces ... We Report, You Assemble

The new circus Easter arrow hunt is a challenge for our Jack Hunter, stationed somewhere I think in the Carolinas. E-mails he, a guy desperately seeking Cole Bros Circus in or around a precinct known as Murrells Inlet, “I knew there was a problem when I didn’t spot any route markers.” Turns out, not to turn this into an engineering enigma, that MI was put back or ahead or under or over ... First, now comes Wilmington, then MI. “I would assume they are on the way to NC but who knows !!!!!” My non-paid east coast stringer then chatted with some carnies in the know, who raise the Big Visa issue as the Big Question Mark. (Wanting to do my park, Jack, here is a map that I hope will help you find your way.)

To Live and Die in Deland? A few arrows later, Jack e-ushered me into Buckle’s big blog under a majestic big top, where I came upon New Cole photos, proof positive that at least the show staged an opening run at its home base. My, what a tiny tent! And my, a real ring. John Pugh has repented of his ringless ways. Let us not forget, ‘twas Sir John and not Sir Kenneth who first rendered the tent a ringless thing. So, Jack, continue being nimble and quick, one missing and/or broken arrow at a time ...

While inside Buckles Hippodrome (what lush images), I scrolled down to admire some Miles White originals for JRN’s 1947 opus. White surely designed like an exotic visionary from some distant planet. Then, there are two photos placed in embarrassing proximity by B.W., shrewdly offering the jarring juxtaposition as Exhibit One, like a courtroom lawyer accusing Ringling-Barnum of artistic malpractice. The first shows a vast three ring plus Shrine Evansville layout, the next, the charming-as-asphalt setting for the Ringless Bros. 2006 breakout — or breakdown — edition. Mr. Feld did grant the suckers half a ring, but what a perfectly ugly thing. Asks Buckles, if you were given a free ticket, to which show would you go? I might have taken in Ringless just to hiss for free.

Let’s get out of there. Bad vides are spoiling my Tranquility Mao Feng tea high here on a floating Wednesday evening at L’Amyx...

Onto Youth and hope and — brace yourself, jockey rabbits who ride doggies! Credit young trainer and contortionist Logan Jacot , swiftly recovering from a nasty auto accident suffered a few months back, who has joined the one with the other in some kind of magical motion. I am perfectly charmed, Logan. I’ve never seen performing rabbits, which may mark me as an underachieving fan of the half-ring era. YOU, in my fury opinion, must have incredible patience — or an inside track on bunny seduction. I love these types of turns around the sawdust .... E-mails the very young, 20-something Logan, “I am recovering quicker than I expected. I did my first back bend yesterday since my wreck” (which left him with a collapsed lung and multiple breaks in one leg). That back bend put Logan on a high, all except for the low that followed. “I could not get back up again myself.” I can see a horde of grateful rabbits coming to his rescue with eggs and arrows and jockey gusto to go. While he’s been putting himself back together, he’s done a friend a favor. “I trained four rabbits to ride dogs for her show.” Something about that sentence sounds so effortless, like whipping up a little picnic spread or building a model roller coaster over the weekend. YOU, kid, must have a gift.

In their own young words: I love hearing the younger set tell me what inspires them. When I learned that one of Logan's heroes is GGW, I asked him why. Now comes his reply: “I have a great deal of respect for Gunther Gebel Williams mostly due to his showmanship. I loved how he could have everybody in the arena looking at him but I do believe there were more talented animal trainers out there.” Showmanship in CAPS, glamour in NEON.

Another youthful revelation: While interviewing the ultra gentlemanly Alex Chimal at Circus Chimera just before the show (he was house manager, but stayed put next to me in the seats, wanting to answer all my questions), this he revealed about an icon who inspired him: “When I was a kid, I saw a video of Ringling, and I saw this guy who was doing wire act, I think his name was Con Colleano. I liked the style.” Jackpot! What a mutual admiration we shared, he off a video, me from a boyhood memory at the Clyde Beatty Circus when the actual Colleano thrilled me in person ...

Dell battery down to only 79%, credit my light weigh syntax. Hey, Jack the Hunter: May you reach the smaller New Cole, and give John Pugh my regards. I’ll try to send along some spare arrows. But I don’t do eggs.

And that’s a bunny wrap.

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Eye on the Big Top: Mired in Cherry Pie, New Cole’s Renee Storey Could be Spinning Cotton Candy Soon...

The Circus previously known as Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros is finally up and at it, valiantly mired in shorthandedness but moving ahead with long suffering spirits — stars pitching in to drive stakes and lay out canvas. Said Renee Storey to Rosa Ramirez of the Daytona Beach News, the show is still short by about 30 workers, the brown hands waiting for green lights from U.S. immigration officials.

The article, shot my way by Jack Hunter, makes clear what most of us have observed over the years: Performers tossing aside egos between acts to dig in and rig up. “We help them so they can help us, too,” said teeterboarder Oscar Julia Preciado. Bravo, Mr. Circus Everyman!

Joked VP Renee Storey — a lady who, from what I gather, has sawdust in her spine, or spine in her sawdust — she might have to make the cotton candy. Reminds me of the song from A Chorus Line, “What I Did For Love.”

What they do for the big top. I imagine Johnny Pugh up there somewhere on the nerve-wracking advance, facing down iffy city council members hounded by two or three PETA screamers, all for the humiliating cost of a lot license. A trouper to his bones is Sir Pugh of the world-class “with it and for it" class.

Covington Connected: Don sent me a fine New York Times endorsement (I guess) of Ringling’s latest, making it sound like a fast moving spread of this and that. My only wonderment is if it’s another random Feld smorgasbord, although those sprawling samplers sometimes do the trick. This edition sounds like a fast blast.

When liberals embrace animal acts, watch out, World! During a conversation with two ex-New Yorkers here in Brooklyn West (a.k.a.: Oakland), the woman, a self described atheist from Queens, shocked me by sharing what a joy she considers circus animal acts to be for young kids. The Brooklyn man, at his wits end over some law that prohibits him from having or harboring a house cat up in the Oakland Hills, is also seeing the light. But boy, did those two dash my stereotype. They, not I, raised the issue. She, not I, went on and on about the “wonderment” of the circus world to a child. And this from the most liberal region in the country? I only listened, grinning inside. Speaking of delightful four-legged show stoppers, there’s this...

A photo not for your eyes, PETA: We know you can’t tolerate watching an elephant dash your stereotype of what it, according to you, should be up to in the wilds. Well, here’s a Michael Jordanesqe pachyderm in Thailand, 2006, going for the hoop. World travelers Angelina and Noel Andreoni, playing basketball basketball in the lovely country previously known as Siam, watched with delight as Orachi the elephant “dunked their ball,”so reported by the paper still known as the New York Times.

Johnny Pugh: The more I think about your telling me of the time when your big bulls were yelping it up to be back on a lot they hadn’t played for years, well ... well ... the more I think you were not pulling my trunk.

And that’s a Cherry Pie Wrap.

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